The threat of world's end is the old threat.

You have come to the shore. There are no instructions.

Both art and faith are dependent on imagination; both are ventures into the unknown.

I'm not very good at praying, but what I experience when I'm writing a poem is close to prayer.

Nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness, the deep intelligence living at peace would have.

It's when we face for a moment the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know the taint in our own selves, that awe cracks the mind's shell and enters the heart.

Grief is a hole you walk around in the daytime and at night you fall into it.

In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.

Marvelous Truth, confront us at every turn, in every guise.

One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to him or her in language.

But for us the road unfurls itself, we don't stop walking, we know there is far to go.

Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.

He couldn't be more than forty-five, but Murray Miles was stooped, old before his time. The mountains of Alberta had the ability to bend those who lived here.That, or it broke them.

Satan knows your name but he calls you by your sin.

The fact is that Iran doesn't want to see the Taliban come back any more than do most Afghan citizens.

It is sometimes necessary to play the fool to avoid being deceived by cunning men.

What we expect rarely occurs; what we don't expect is what happens.

The condition of being an actress can be unbearable.

I don't think evil is sexy! I don't think being cruel and mean and hurting other people is sexy! ... Although I have been quite attracted to some very bad boys!

People in general would rather die than forgive. It's THAT hard. If God said in plain language. "I'm giving you a choice, forgive or die," a lot of people would go ahead and order their coffin.

The historic function of a Senator from Oregon is to drive all the other Senators mad.